About the authors: Anastasia Berg is an assistant professor of philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an editor at The Point. Rachel Wiseman is the managing editor at The Point.

“They were gradually acquainted, and when acquainted, rapidly and deeply in love. It would be difficult to say which had seen the highest perfection in the other, or which had been the happiest: she, in receiving his declarations and proposals, or he in having them accepted.”

So begins Jane Austen’s final completed novel, Persuasion-and perhaps no two sentences describe as succinctly the traditional romantic ideal of falling in love.

They cast a wider net than ever before-dating across great geographical divides-and test the waters for long periods over text and videochat before meeting in person

Many today would recognize the appeal of such a picture, however skeptical they might be about the likelihood of this fantasy coming to life. The way we actually date, though, could hardly be more different. Today, love takes time. When looking for a soul mate, people no longer rely on blind dates or chance encounters. They vet partners for financial stability and compatible interests. Every stage of the relationship is drawn out: They wait longer to become “official” or exclusive, to move in together, to introduce their partners to their families, to reissue of her book Anatomy of Love, Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist at the Kinsey Institute who has served as an adviser for the dating site Match for more than 15 years, gave these new, extended courtship practices a pithy name: “slow love.”

Relationship experts, Fisher among them, have watched with eager fascination to see what effects the pandemic would have on our romantic lives. Anecdotal evidence, as well as the results from the most recent “Singles in America” yearly survey-which samples 5,000 demographically representative individuals-suggests that the pandemic has caused dating to decelerate further. Hesitant about meeting in person, people have been spending more time texting and videochatting before meeting, and even when they move to in-person dates, they have been holding off on physical contact for longer. Relationship goals have shifted, too: Only 11 percent of singles expressed interest in dating casually.

This decline in casual dating is likely to lead to happier, deeper, and more lasting relationships over time, the experts assure us. “Cupid beat COVID by a country mile,” Fisher told us cheerily. As early as e convinced that COVID-19 has been “changing the dating game for the better,” as she ents” spurred by pandemic dating suggest that Americans are taking a more “intentional” approach to partnership, Sara Konrath, a social psychologist, wrote in The Atlantic later that year. (Incidentally, Konrath is also a “scientific adviser” to an online dating site, OkCupid.) These changes in attitudes toward dating are “a historic change!” and evidence for “post-traumatic growth” in the aftermath of the pandemic, Fisher, a proud Boomer, told us. “You were always an extremely serious generation, much more serious than mine,” she added. “You’re leading the way in wanting a serious partnership. And I think you’re going to take your time to do it now.”

Rapid and deep, true love, for Austen, leaves no room for doubt; once it is declared, lifelong commitment-barring intervention by ill fortune or meddlesome relatives-will surely follow quickly on its heels

Her argument has intuitive appeal, and echoes the sort of romantic advice often given to young people today: “There’s no need to rush”; “Enjoy your 20s”; “Figure out who you are.” Today, even hard-core romantics bear no illusions about the permanence of lust, limerence, or wedlock. It is common knowledge that roughly one in two ericans have seen divorce up close, in their own or their friends’ immediate families. In a 2015 report on Gen X https://besthookupwebsites.org/local-hookup/orlando/ and Millennial attitudes toward marriage, nearly two in five said that “marriage has not worked out for most people I know,” and nearly half of all singles expressed “pessimism” about the institution of marriage. When deciding to marry, few today truly feel it’s unquestionably forever. We say “I do,” for now. And how better to insure against heartbreak than to hold off on committing until you’re absolutely sure? “For the past 10,000 years,” Fisher has observed, “marriage was the beginning of a partnership; today it is its finale.”